Alice & Jean

Summary

Every lover has her story, and every town has its secrets.

It's 1946 in New Zealand, and Alice Holden has fallen for the woman delivering her milk every morning. Jean has a way about her, a swagger, honey-sweet and low voice, and a wink with an easy smile that lights up Alice's world, stirring her in ways she's never known before, and Alice with blinders on, wants to choose this feeling over all else.

Jean has been head over heels in love with the sparky and adorable single mother since the first time she saw her. She's even drawn to Alice's two fatherless children, and family life has never looked so good. Jean's deep desire to have more than a life spent looking in from the outside seems more than she should hope for, and now Alice has her tossing the dice for it against all odds.

But there are two people in town who believe they have the prior claim to Alice, in duty and affection, and they'll do almost anything to get what they want.

Alice and Jean have discovered that each is what the other has always longed for, each other's missing link. Now they need to find a way to be together, despite the obstacles.

Alice & Jean - Lily Hammond

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Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

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Alice & Jean/ Lily Hammond.—1st ed.

ISBN 978-0-473-37814-1 Epub 978-0-473-37815-8 Mobi

Always for you, my darling Valerie.

chapter one

Alice switched off the radio and listened to the birds instead. They piped their songs in through the open window, telling her about spring and how the sunshine slanted across the branches where they perched in the apple tree. Alice wondered if she’d ever noticed any of this before and found that perhaps she’d missed a lot of it.

She’d been getting the children’s breakfast ready. The porridge warmed on the old coal range and she blew an errant hair from her eyes before smoothing it back and checking the clock.

It was almost time. She had butterflies in her stomach and cocking her head, she listened again. There it was – the cheerful shout of voices out on the street. Fumbling with the ties, Alice tore off the worn and dirty apron she’d put on to light the unruly range and tugged on the one she’d made the week before. It was a pretty red and white pattern that made her feel cheerful just to see it but did nothing to settle her stomach.

‘Milk’s here, Mama!’ Tilly shouted from the other room, and Alice heard the sound of the front door being tugged open by the small child.

‘Tilly,’ she called. ‘Don’t you go out onto the road!’ She bustled down the hallway after her daughter, ready to catch the child’s skirts.

‘Morning Tilly,’ a voice outside said, and Alice felt her heart pound faster, and she pressed a hand against her chest, feeling the heat of her flesh through the fabric of dress and apron.

It was a warm, rich voice and she hurried toward it, hands flying from stomach to skirt to hair. She stood on the doorstep at last, flustered despite herself, and hoping that she hadn’t accidently chewed off her lipstick during the morning’s wait.

‘Hullo Alice,’ the same voice said, accompanied by a smile that reached cocoa-coloured eyes dancing in a sun-golden face. ‘One pint of our finest, and a bottle of cream – what’s the cream for, Alice my love? Are you baking me a cake?’ The voice was full of laughter and seeped in under Alice’s pale skin and warmed her from the inside out.

Tilly turned to her. ‘Can we bake a cake, Mama? Please?’

It took a moment for Alice to answer the child. All the words were backed up in her throat, coating it like she’d swallowed a mouthful of honey.

Then she shook herself out of her fancies. She was being silly. Her hand patted Tilly’s shoulder.

‘We are going to bake a cake, Tilly,’ she said. ‘That’s exactly what the cream is for. We’re going to make a nice Victoria sponge.’ To her ears, her voice sounded clogged with cream already.

Tilly looked up at her. ‘Can Jean come help us eat it?’

Jean grinned at her, pushing the small bottle of cream into her hands. ‘Victoria sponge is my favourite,’ she said to the child, and looking at the mother.

Tilly piped up. ‘Come for afternoon tea. It’s Mama’s birthday!’

Those milk chocolate eyes warmed another degree and Alice shifted under their gaze, skin prickling against the soft cotton she wore.

‘Happy birthday, Alice,’ Jean said, her voice low, a whisper Alice imagined she could almost feel against her ear. She wanted to fan herself, suddenly hot, and then blushed deeper, alarmed at the way her body was responding. It wasn’t right. Jean was, well, Jean. A woman.

She opened her mouth. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Please come.’

The eyes blinked at her.

‘For cake.’ She cleared her throat. ‘This afternoon.’

The driver of the milk truck shouted. ‘Oi Jean, we don’t got all day. Tell Alice she’s looking right pretty today.’ Laughing, he dropped an empty crate in the back of the small truck and climbed behind the wheel with a wave and a wink.

‘You’re looking very pretty today, Alice,’ Jean said with a grin. ‘I’d be honoured to share your birthday cake with you.’

‘And me,’ Tilly butted in.

Jean smiled down at the three-year-old and swept her cap off in a sudden bow, backing away from their doorstep.

‘And you, Tilly, my lass,’ she said, laughing again.

With a wave, she was gone, sliding into the truck with Tim Fry, and rollicking off down the potholed road.

She looked down at her daughter. ‘Only if you’re very careful,’ she said, arranging the child’s two small hands around it so it wouldn’t slip.

‘I'm careful,’ Tilly said, little pink tongue poking out from between her lips in concentration.

‘Yes, you are,’ Alice agreed, straining for a last glance at the road, then turning into the house, following her daughter into the dimness and wondering what on earth she’d just done, inviting Jean around for cake. She arrived back in the kitchen and stood there for a moment, just blinking, her mind blank.

Tilly put the cream bottle on the table and climbed up onto a chair to look at it. ‘Look Jack,’ she said when her brother came in the room. ‘We got cream!’

Jack’s eyes widened. ‘Can we have some with our porridge, Mum?’

She came back to herself, standing in the kitchen feeling their two pairs of eyes on her. Her hands were cold from holding the pint of milk. She licked her lips.

‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Just a little though.’

‘The rest is for the cake,’ Tilly said in a confidential manner to her brother. ‘Mama’s birthday cake. It’s Mama’s birthday today.’

Jack turned his gaze on Alice and she looked at him, his eyes a grey-blue under sandy hair so like his father’s.

‘Happy birthday, Mum,’ he said, all the seriousness of his eight years behind the words. ‘Let me make you a cup of tea.’ He took the milk bottle from her and put it in the cold store, then led her to the table where she sat automatically.

‘The porridge,’ she said.

He nodded and took three bowls down from the shelf, setting them on the table then going back to the range.

‘Get the spoons, Tilly,’ he said.

The little girl slid off the bench and scuttled over to the cutlery drawer. Alice watched both of them in bemusement.

A moment later, the porridge was divided between the three bowls, and Jack was struggling to make tea with the heavy kettle. He wouldn’t let her help him, though and in a moment, her teapot was filled, cup and saucer ready. He stood back to check his handiwork and Alice leaned over and kissed his cheek.

‘You’re a wonder, Jack,’ she said. ‘Best son ever.’

He beamed under her attention, then took his place at the head of the table. It had been his father’s seat, until they’d had word from the army that Terry Holden had died under the hot sun somewhere in the Pacific in 1944, fighting the Japanese. The day after they’d had the news, young Jack had taken his father’s chair at the table. Afterwards, Alice had gone into her bedroom and wept for both father and son.

‘What sort of cake are you going to make, Mum?’ he asked, spooning porridge into his mouth, the unruly cowlick on his head bobbing with the movement.

‘Oh,’ Alice said. ‘I was thinking a nice Victoria sponge, for something special. Mrs Reuben will let us have some eggs.’ The Reuben’s’ had a small farm just out of town, and Mrs Reuben, round and jolly, had taken a shining to Tilly and Jack. Her own three sons were long grown, though only one had made it back from the war.

‘Jean is coming to help us eat it,’ Tilly said, unable to keep any news under her blonde curls.

The boy looked startled for a moment, his eyes going to his mother. She stilled the commotion under her breast and simply gave him a smile.

‘Tilly invited her,’ she said.

Tilly pouted in her porridge. ‘No I didn’t,’ she said. ‘You did, Mama.’

Alice pushed away the bowl and took a sip of her tea, hand trembling minutely. Had she invited Jean? She didn’t look at the children.

Had she really?

chapter two

It was too warm to wear a coat. Alice took off her apron and put on a cardigan instead, tucking her hair under a scarf. She captured Tilly and popped the squirming child into the pram.

‘Hold still, Tilly,’ she scolded. ‘You’ll wiggle your way right out.’

‘But where we going, Mama? I wanted to play with Prudence. We’re going to have a tea party.’

‘Well, your doll will have to come for a ride with us instead. We need some eggs.’

The girl wiggled in her seat, her dolly under her arm as she held onto the sides of the pram. They bumped down over the step and down the short path to the road.

‘For the cake!’ she crowed.

‘For the cake,’ Alice agreed. ‘But we have to go see Grandma, first.’

Tilly stopped her wiggling and clapped her hands over her eyes. She sat there blind for a long moment before dropping her plump little fingers and looking at her mother in dismay.

‘I know, sweetheart,’ Alice consoled her. ‘But she is my mother, and your grandmother, and she likes to see us.’ She forced a smile on her face. ‘It’s a special day for her too, after all.’

A tiny frown burrowed between Tilly’s eyebrows. ‘Why?’ she asked.

‘It’s kind of a birthday for her too, don’t you think? When I was born, she became a mother. That’s special.’

Tilly thought about it, then lay herself back on the pillow in the pram, staring up at her mother as they walked alongside the road.

‘So you get kinda birthdays when Jack and me have them?’

Alice nodded.

‘You don’t get any presents,’ Tilly said.

‘I don’t need to. I got you two, and those were the best presents ever.’ Alice smiled at her daughter, and they trundled from one side of the town to the other, to the shady street where her mother’s house sat back from the road, white and lovely. She opened her mouth to say something, then closed it again. Tilly was too young to understand. It wouldn’t be fair to ask her not to say anything about Jean coming for afternoon tea.

‘Ready?’ she said, speaking more to herself than Tilly. On a deep breath, she bounced the pram down the path and parked it outside the door. Gathering Tilly in her arms, she knocked and waited to say hello to her mother.

‘There you are,’ her mother said when she came to the door, lips pursed. When she turned her head for a kiss, Alice touched her lips dutifully to the powdered cheek.

‘How are you, Mother?’ she asked.

‘Can’t complain,’ the older woman said, although Alice knew that before long she would indeed be complaining.

‘It’s Mama’s birthday,’ Tilly said, set down on the floor and twining in and out of Alice’s legs, peering up at her grandmother.

‘Yes, it is. Come this way, Alice. I have a pot of tea made.’ The stiff back was implacable. ‘And a gift for you, of course.’

‘Mother,’ Alice said, stifling her sigh. ‘You needn’t have.’ She stepped inside and followed her mother into the dim depths of the old villa. The floorboards creaked under her steps and she listened to them echo about the house, as though no one had ever stepped foot there before and it was alarmed at the intrusion.

More fancies. She shook her head. Seemed she was full of them, lately. Maybe it was the spring that had blossomed outside, pushing the bright faces of daffodils and crocus up from the soil.

‘I needn’t have,’ her mother said, and it took a moment for Alice to remember what they’d been talking about. ‘But you are my daughter, and there is an obligation to look after you.’ She cast an iron glance back at Alice. ‘Lord knows, someone needs to. You’re not doing a good job of it yourself.’

They arrived in the drawing room, and Geraldine Thomas gestured at the small table set for morning tea beneath the window. There were three chairs and Alice winced at the sight of them, knowing the next half an hour would be torture as she made Tilly sit still upon the chair set for her.

‘I’ve put a cushion on the chair for the child,’ her mother said. ‘And you know I must start, as you say it, Alice. Someone has to say things, and it’s my duty as your mother, since you no longer have a husband.’

Alice looked down at her hands, clasped white-knuckled around Tilly’s waist. It took an effort of will to place the little girl on the chair and sink into the one next to it.

Her mother gave her a smile and poured hot tea from the flowered china pot sitting on the white table cloth. ‘There’s a little cordial for the child,’ she said.

Alice poured some of the orange drink in a glass. ‘Her name is Tilly, Mother. You can say it.’

Geraldine looked surprised. ‘I'm aware of what my own granddaughter is named, Alice, there’s no need to be rude.’

It was a waste of time. Biting down on a sigh, Alice picked up her cup and gave Tilly a side-long smile. They’d stay for the lecture, then be on their way. Outside the sun was shining, and she had a nice little spectacles case she’d sewn that Mrs Reuben would be pleased to have in exchange for some eggs and a little butter.

Her heart lifted on a cresting wave, the season’s lightness coursing suddenly through her body.

‘Your colour is high today, Alice,’ her mother said. ‘Are you coming down with something?’

She shook her head. ‘Not at all, Mother,’ she answered. ‘I’ve never felt better. It’s a beautiful day.’

Her mother nodded heavily. ‘Yes, I must get out in the garden today and see what needs tending to.’ She said it as if it would be a chore. Her thin lips pressed against the delicate china of the cup.

‘I was thinking this really can’t go on, you know,’ she said suddenly, putting the cup back on the saucer with a determined, clinking sound.

Alice drew breath, glanced at Tilly who was staring outside at a black bird on the lawn. ‘You know how I feel about it, Mother,’ she said. ‘We have a home.’

The snort in response was quick in coming. ‘Alice, your home is a house barely standing. A grimy four rooms. I'm surprised it has running water. It should be demolished.’

‘Nonetheless, it is our home. We are comfortable there.’ Alice’s shoulders tightened, and she despised the defensiveness that crept into her voice.

‘You are to move in here,’ Geraldine declared. ‘You and the children.’ She waved a hand at the room. ‘It is gross stupidity for you to stay there when you could quite easily come back home.’ She blinked at her daughter, the lines of her face set. ‘Until you marry again, it makes complete sense for you to live here. Your father would have wanted it.’

‘My father is not here.’

‘God rest his soul. He would be furious to see where you are living. How you get by, I’ve no idea!’

Alice looked away, eyes sweeping over the furniture in the sitting room, all the occasional tables, the plant stands, the knick-knacks everywhere. Her mother had been thirty-five when Alice had been born, and still lived as though in a different era.

It was not a place for children. Alice knew that from experience. And her mother was wrong about how her father would have felt. He would have wanted Alice to be happy.

‘We will stay where we are,’ she said. ‘It might not be much, but it is our home, and it is where we lived as a family. If you want to help, there are better ways to do it.’

Her mother shook her head, the grey hair pulled tightly back against the skull in a harsh bun. ‘It is not even your own home,’ she said, ignoring Alice’s last statement. ‘Your husband did not even own it.’

Alice tried to ignore the sneering way her mother said the word husband. Neither had liked the other. This issue of her house was dangerous territory. The fact that she did not own the house she and her children lived in was a cross Alice found it difficult to bear. Because of the woman sitting across the small table from her. She lived in fear that her mother would take her landlord aside and order him to evict Alice and her children.

She closed her eyes for a moment, breathing in through her nose, trying to stay calm. Luckily, Bob Forrester was a good man, and had no liking himself for Alice’s mother. He wouldn’t turn her out onto the street.

Not as long as Alice could pay the rent every month, that was. In her lap, her hands twisted together.

‘Let’s talk about something nice, Mother,’ she said. ‘How is the good Mrs McMurtry?’

Rowena McMurtry was her mother’s closest ally. That was the only way to put it.

‘We’re having cake today, Grandma,’ Tilly said, unable to hold in the news any longer. She twisted on her chair and got up to sit on her knees, leaning over the table.

Her grandmother frowned at her. ‘Sit down properly, child,’ she said.

Tilly paid no attention, and Alice put a restraining hand on her, but it was too late.

‘Mrs Reuben is giving us eggs and butter and Mama and me going to make cake and then Jean is going to come help us eat it!’ A quick pause for breath in the rigid silence of the room. ‘She’s coming for afternoon tea!’

Geraldine Thomas sat stiffly in her chair for a full minute after this pronouncement, then turned her gaze onto her daughter. Her eyes were a washed-out and faded blue, but they could still convey considerable disapproval.

‘This wouldn’t be Jean Reardon, would it, Alice? Who worked for Jim Dempsey until he had to fire her? I only know of that one Jean.’

From thick with honey earlier in the day, Alice’s throat now was dry with sand. She swallowed, and it made a rasping sound.

Her mother blinked at her. ‘You are a respectable woman, Alice. A woman like that shouldn’t be setting foot anywhere near your house.’

Alice licked her lips. ‘A woman like exactly what, Mother?’ she said.

The eyes gazed at her with contempt. ‘I'm sure you’re aware of the reputation Jean Reardon has, Alice. Do not play the stupid innocent with me.’

‘But I am innocent, Mother. Whatever you want to accuse me of by seeking Jean’s simple friendship is beyond me.’ The words fell limply from her mouth and she hoped her mother wouldn’t notice.

Because when it came to Jean, she didn’t feel innocent at all. She didn’t even want to. The dancing brown eyes came to mind again, and she felt faint under their gaze.

Her mother was watching her. ‘It is entirely inappropriate, Alice, and I forbid the relationship.’

‘There is no relationship!’

‘She’s gonna eat cake with us,’ Tilly said, and her bottom lip trembled even while she did not understand the conversation.

‘The woman enjoyed the war too much,’ Geraldine said. ‘The men being away. She is entirely unsuitable, and hearing this has made up my mind completely.’

Alice stared at her.

‘You and the children will move in here. I will organise everything.’ She turned away to the window, her back decided. ‘Your gift is on the hall table. Take it on the way out.’ She spoke without looking at Alice. ‘I will contact you with some help to move your things. You won’t need anything but clothes and personal items.’

Alice stared at her mother, speechless. She tried to think of something to say, but a queasy knot of terror and fury tied itself in her tongue and no words came. After a blank moment, she stood, plucked up Tilly and turned on her heel, stalking out of the room on unsteady legs. She closed the door to the drawing room, blotting out the picture on her mother’s intractable back.

‘Never mind, Tilly,’ she said. ‘Everything’s okay.’ She sniffed and wiped a hand across her face, then walked down the hallway back to the front door.

Her birthday present sat on the small table beside the door, a small white envelope. Alice knew without looking what it contained. Swallowing, she stared at it for a long moment, then left it where it was and went out the door.

She couldn’t bring herself to take her mother’s money, no matter how much she needed it.

chapter three

Jean walked back down the hallway in the boarding house towards her room. She’d scrubbed herself clean, looking at the big cast iron tub and wishing she had time for a bath too. But a glance at her wristwatch told her that if she wanted to get there on time, a quick dunk in the basin was all she could afford.

There was a pounding under her breastbone she was trying to ignore. Invited for cake by Alice Holden! She shook her damp hair, not quite certain how it had all happened.

A quick stop in her room and she picked up the bunch of flowers she’d splurged on for the birthday girl. Usually when she was out and about, she would just pick some of the prettiest blooms from the fields, but not this time. She’d taken herself into the florist’s shop in town and stood itching with self-consciousness under the lady’s gaze as she ordered the prettiest posy there.

But Alice Holden deserved it. A smile hovered around Jean’s lips. Alice had been making an appearance in the mornings more and more often, and Jean had flirted with her as a matter of course. It was what she did. Just a cheeky, harmless bit of flirtation. It made her laugh. Made everyone laugh. Mostly. Some of the old biddies were a bit stern, but in general, everyone had a good time. It was all a bit of fun.

But Alice, with her kaleidoscope eyes, hazel, some mornings brown, sometimes green, and her waving honey-coloured hair – what a picture she was. Jean blinked, hand tightening on the posy. She’d have to step carefully here. This might mean something.

Outside and it was a perfect day. In the distance Mount Egmont sat on the horizon wearing perfect robes of snow. Closer, the breeze rattled cheerfully about, bringing with it the sharp salt tang of the sea. Breathing deep, Jean turned her feet towards the little street on the edge of town, where Alice and her two children lived in a ramshackle little place that she still kept spit-polished to a happy shine.

The school bell sounded, and Jean was overtaken in a rush of children spilling out of the building. She laughed at their rough and tumble as they surrounded her, then moved on, leaving her high and dry on the footpath like a piece of flotsam.

One kid, however, she found dawdling behind her, heavy boots kicking at a stone and his hands dug deep in the pockets of his shorts.

‘Jack?’

He nodded shyly at her from under sandy brown hair. She smiled at him, thinking how much he looked like his dad.

‘I reckon we’re going the same way,’ she said. ‘What do you say – can I walk with you?’

Another nod, the eyes downcast to the dusty footpath, but he kicked the stone into the gutter and caught silently up with her.

‘So,’ she said, not looking at him anymore, but gazing up at the blue sky. ‘Good day for cake, huh?’

‘It’s Mum’s birthday,’ the boy blurted out.

Jean nodded. ‘Yeah. It is.’

Walking next to her, Jack seemed to be chewing over some fathomless problem. Jean stuck her hands in her own pockets and hummed a song she’d heard on the radio. She didn’t know what it was called, but it was cheerful enough for the tune to stick in her mind.

The boy made his move at last, pulling a hand from the depths of his pocket and holding something out in the palm of his hand. Jean bent over to look as they walked.

‘I got something for Mum,’ he said. ‘Won it specially for her on the playground.’ He rubbed his fingers over the glass marble. It sparkled sapphire blue in the sunlight.

‘It’s a real beauty,’ Jean said, nodding in approval.

‘The boy I won it from got it from an American soldier.’ There was a touch of wonder in his voice.

‘Bet he played hard to keep it then,’ Jean said. ‘You did good.’

He looked up at her with a fierce expression. ‘I wanted it to give it to Mum. Blue is her favourite colour.’

That was a handy piece of information. Jean filed it away for future reference.

They passed Alan Farmer stacking oranges outside his grocery shop and Jean gave him a wave.

‘You know him?’ Jack asked.

‘Alan? Yes, he’s a good guy.’

Alice’s son nodded, then dropped his head again. Jean watched him for a moment, then cleared her throat.

‘She’s going to love it, you know,’ she said, nodding at the marble still clenched in his fist.

He nodded, sniffed, then sent her an anguished glance that reminded her the kid was only seven or eight. Still a child.

‘I haven’t anything to wrap it in.’

Ah, so that was the problem. She tilted her head, pretending to ponder the question. A smile bloomed on her face and she pointed over the road. The kid’s gaze followed her finger.

‘The drapers?’ he asked.

‘You got it.’ Jean nodded sagely. ‘Come with me.’ She stepped onto the road, looking both ways for traffic to set a good example, then strode out for the other side. Jack trotted along at her ankles.